The Agency: A History of the CIA

Why did the United States create a secret foreign intelligence service in the first place? For the answer, examine three key periods of U.S. government intelligence before the birth of the CIA: the American Revolution to the late 1930s, World War II, and the postwar years from 1945 to 1947.

Professor Wilford reveals how the CIA transformed from an intelligence agency to housing the United States’ premier covert-action unit in the space of just two years. Central to this conversion is George F. Kennan, who declared “political warfare” against the Soviet Union through his policies of both containment and “rollback.”

Discover how the CIA, with its attention drawn to Asia, failed to rein in the growing emphasis on covert operations and restore its focus on intelligence gathering and analysis. Two factors you’ll focus on: the lack of public scrutiny of the CIA’s actions and the arrival of future CIA director Allen Dulles.

More than any other operation, the 1953 Iran Coup created a culture of covert action that would shape the CIA’s future. First, study the shifting political attitudes toward Iranian nationalism. Then, learn about the Iran operation itself (TP-AJAX). Finally, ponder who was most responsible for Mohammad Mosaddeq’s fall from power.

In this episode, explore the CIA’s role in the Guatemalan coup (the operation codenamed PB-SUCCESS) that brought about a new era of murderous dictatorship to the country and a surge of anti-American sentiment across Central and South America that has haunted U.S. relations with the region to this day.

One of the CIA’s first major setbacks was the tragic failure of the Hungarian uprising, despite the agency’s attempts to liberate the Eastern Bloc countries during the early 1950s. Here, investigate CIA efforts to organize anti-communist Eastern European emigres to liberate their homelands and the creation of Radio Free Europe to counteract communist-controlled media.

Focus on the CIA’s efforts to gain intelligence about its chief Cold War enemy: the Soviet Union. Professor Wilford covers how the CIA employed human agents as spies (HUMINT), how the CIA attempted to intercept Soviet signals (SIGINT), and how the CIA used advanced technology like the U-2 spy plane to gather intelligence (TECHINT).

Go inside the CIA’s three major covert ops setbacks of the late 1950s. The first was a follow-up attempt at regime change in Syria (1957), the second was an attempt to unseat the Indonesia leader Sukarno (1958), and the last was the effort to remove the Congolese prime minster, Patrice Lumumba (1960).

Why were both Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy so dead-set on removing Fidel Castro from power? How did the CIA plan to use hallucinogens to assassinate the communist dictator? What made the CIA’s Bay of Pigs covert operation such a resounding (and public) disaster?

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was arguably the defining moment in the Cold War: 13 days in which the world came closest to a nuclear confrontation. Using recent scholarship, Professor Wilford unpacks the CIA’s performance during the crisis and how it sparked a return to traditional intelligence work instead of covert ops.

Get a more complete understanding of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War by including the CIA in the larger narrative, specifically the fascinating and controversial Edward Lansdale. Learn how the CIA tried to win the war through nation-building and counterinsurgency, and how it provided the military with tactical and strategic intelligence.

Why did the CIA secretly fund groups of Americans at home in the United States (the longest-running and most expensive operation of the Cold War era)? What did the groups themselves think of the roles they played? Investigate how the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union quickly became a global ideological battle.

Since its inception, the CIA has deliberately tried to influence the purveyors of culture in film, television, and literature. Visit the cultural front of the Cold War as the CIA becomes a secret patron of American musicians, artists, writers, and filmmakers. Also, take a closer look at how popular culture, in turn, shaped the CIA.

Professor Wilford challenges the dominant narrative of the CIA’s involvement in the Chilean coup of 1973. Learn why the organization was less responsible than other U.S. players (such as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger), and why the coup illustrates the agency’s decline during the 1970s as a chief weapon of the Cold War.

Using recently released government records, unpack the domestic CIA operations of the Nixon era and discover a systemic culture of secret government overreach with the CIA at the center. Topics include the program known as MH-CHAOS, the CIA’s contributions to Watergate, and journalist Seymour Hersh’s 1974 expose of CIA domestic intelligence operations.

Explore intelligence officer James Angleton’s dramatic hunt for Soviet moles inside the CIA, a story of deception, betrayal, and tragedy. Angleton’s story (and his ultimate fate) hold powerful lessons for our own time, when secret state power is the source of renewed public debate and concern.

The 1970s saw a growing movement against the CIA, from congressional joint-oversight committees to whistleblowers like Philip Agee. Was the CIA out of control? What forces drove the antagonism toward the agency, and why were they so powerful in the spring of 1975? Discover the answers here.

Go inside the story of the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis that wracked Jimmy Carter’s presidency, with a particular focus on the CIA’s failure to anticipate Iran’s Islamic revolution. Despite the geopolitical gloom, spend some time examining the one bright spot for the CIA: the successful rescue of six diplomats who avoided capture.

The start of the Reagan presidency saw a return to the unchecked freedom of the CIA’s golden age. Then came the Iran-Contra Scandal, which culminated in criminal charges, convictions, pardons, and dismissals. As you’ll learn, the potential for 1970s-style conflict between Congress and the CIA remained.

Turn now to the final years of the Cold War and the CIA’s adventures in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Also, investigate the agency’s intelligence about the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union a decade later. Do covert operatives deserve credit for bringing these events about?

First, follow the rise of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda during the final decades of the 20th century and the dawn of the terrorist organization’s war with the United States. Then, Professor Wilford addresses the provocative question of why the CIA failed to predict (or disrupt) the terrorist attacks of September 11.

Trace the CIA’s role in the first years of the War on Terror: years that were among the darkest in the agency’s history. Focus on the agency’s major setbacks in the War on Terror, including the failure to capture Osama bin Laden and the faulty evidence that led to the Iraq War.

Examine the CIA’s role in two phases of the War on Terror: the capture and interrogation of suspected terrorists and, after those methods were discredited, the killing of terrorists using drone strikes. By the end of the Obama era, the agency had regained some of its stature, but also had become more vulnerable.

What does a balance sheet of the CIA’s wins and losses since its creation look like? As Professor Wilford reveals, the CIA’s intelligence performance hasn’t been as poor as some have argued. But there still remains, in the world’s largest democracy, an abiding tension between secret government power and accountability.